How to read the Gulf markets, a guide for Indian startups

In recent years, the Middle East has become the go-to place for Indian startups to expand into. Dubai is considered the best Indian city outside of India, a natural extension of the metropolitan consumer base. More than a third of the UAE is anyway Indians, so startups have been coming, one after another, to cater to the diaspora. Zomato. Urban Company. Lenskart. FirstCry. Nykaa. Cars24. Curefoods. Fresh2Home. Paytm. Ferns N Petals. And more. Why is it then that so many of them have gotten this market wrong? When Lenskart launched, its entire premise of affordability didn’t work here. FirstCry had to fight a lot of local competition. And Paytm had a web of regulations to navigate. What makes the Mideast market and its many countries so hard to read? Why is it that what works in India has repeatedly failed to work in this part of the world? We will sit down with Vish Narain, managing partner at Pulsar Capital and the former India head of TPG Growth to find some answers. Vish is a private equity man and is now investing, building and scaling businesses in the India-Mideast corridor. Geopolitics and the general business environment may have this region hot for Indian startups, but Vish has seen many come in and fumble these markets.